Elon Musk’s Grok AI Analyzes His Nazi Salute

Et tu, Grok?

Bot Stabber

Somehow, there’s still a debate going as to whether Elon Musk performed not one but two Nazi salutes at Donald Trump’s post-inauguration celebration: one at the crowd, and then seconds later, one at the flag.

Maybe Musk just made an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” — two of them, back-to-back — or maybe he’s just being taken out of context. In this age of confusion, who could say for sure?

So, to settle it once and for all, why not turn to Musk’s very own “maximum truth-seeking AI,” Grok? Asked to answer in one word the ideology it would most closely relate to Musk’s onstage gesture, Grok didn’t hesitate.

“Fascism,” the AI chatbot replied.

Even in a lengthier conversation, Grok comes to the same conclusion.

Betrayal!

Our point isn’t that Grok, or any AI model, is an unerring arbiter of truth — it’s obviously not. But the chatbot’s response is incredibly ironic, given that Musk has raised billions of dollars to create it as an “anti-woke” alternative to more mainstream options, like ChatGPT. On X, in which the chatbot is integrated, his many fans frequently cite Grok’s responses as inarguable truths.

And yet here it is, publicly turning on its creator — which isn’t the first time it’s done this, incidentally. In a veritable train of patricidal rebukes, Grok has also blasted Musk as a spreader of misinformation and mercilessly roasted him for being a “giant man child.”

Outbursts like these clearly get under Musk’s skin. Over a year ago, he promised to take “immediate action” to align Grok closer to being “politically neutral” after it said nice things about diversity efforts and trans people.

Evidently, eradicating the “woke mind virus” from the AI model has proved more difficult than Musk ever imagined, if his creation is still doing things like trashing Trump, supporting Kamala Harris, and now cutting through the crap and likening his actions to fascism.

Break Ranks

In response to being accused of performing a “Sieg Heil,” Musk hasn’t really denied his guilt, choosing instead to troll his liberal critics, not to mention making light of the Holocaust. He‘s also framed the Nazi comparisons as part of a media conspiracy — flimsy defenses that even Grok was able to see through, apparently. 

Big picture-wise, Musk has strived to control the flow of news and information, something his purchase of X has been essential to achieving. He’s frequently suppressed his critics — left wing or otherwise — on the platform, while using his enormous following to boost baseless conspiracy theories shared by many of his far right fans. All the while, he‘s promoted X as a superior source of news while calling on his followers to engage in “citizen journalism.”

Still, the fact that Musk can’t fully align his chatbot with his own “anti-woke” ideology shows that his efforts to shape reality in his image still face considerable challenges. Et tu, Grok?

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